


when we were young

by Valenae



Series: The Seven Sons of Thares [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valenae/pseuds/Valenae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maki remembers Sine's stories and the doubts that came with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when we were young

When I was young, my big sister would tell me and my brother stories. Our parents were gone, mother patrolling and father out on the boat, and she would usher us into her room, onto a mound of blankets and bedding, and tell us stories until we fell asleep. She would say that beyond the Moran Seas, our seas, far up in the south, there were huge masses of land, so different from the islands we know, and people, so different from us, who lived there. She would say that the sela built small homes and small markets and small workshops and that their small villages were filled with more love and hope and heart than we could possibly imagine. She would say that beyond them, the duna built massive, glittering towers, incredible feats of of human ingenuity that gleamed even through the haze of frozen rain which fell so often there. She would sigh and look out the window and whisper, “In the name of Thares and her seven sons, I swear I will see it all one day,” and I would be filled with wonder and fear in equal measure at the thought of her achieving her dream.

 

“You’d still come back, right? To me and Maki?” my brother would ask. Dar was always better than I was at saying what he felt.

 

“Well, I wouldn’t need to,” Sine would reply, all matter-of-fact, “You’d be coming with me.”

 

Dar would giggle and say she was being silly, but I would still doubt. My name, my full name, means ‘protective strength’, my mother’s first command of me. Though I was the youngest, I was serious in my duty. If I let Sine go alone and she was hurt, I would be a failure for not offering help, but if I went along and she was hurt, I would know that I was a failure because I was too weak to protect anyone. Dar, ever-perceptive, would sense my unease and distract me, asking for another story or starting a game by throwing a pillow at my face, and I would let the thoughts go for the evening. Eventually, we would always grow tired, and we’d all huddle on the soft pile, curled around each other in a deep, restful sleep that never came to us when we were apart.


End file.
